Bengaluru, 8 Aug

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday reiterated his vote theft allegations and slammed the Election Commission (EC) for demanding an affidavit under oath from him to support his claims.

Addressing the 'Vote Adhikar Rally' here, Gandhi alleged that the EC and BJP colluded to steal the Lok Sabha polls from people.

"The EC asks me to file an affidavit and give information under oath. I have taken oath inside the Parliament holding the Constitution," he said.

Now, when people are questioning the EC based on data he released, the EC has shut its website, alleged the Congress MP.

The EC websites in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar have been shut down because they knew that if people asked questions based on data, then their entire structure would collapse, Gandhi alleged.

Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Parliament wanted his party-run government in Karnataka to investigate and act against the "crime of stealing election”.

Rahul Gandhi further said, "In the (2024) Lok Sabha polls, our alliance won in Maharashtra. But after 4 months, the BJP won the Maharashtra Assembly polls. It was a surprising election result. When we tried to find out, we learnt that 1 crore new voters cast their vote, voters who had never voted in the LS polls voted in the Assembly elections".

The Congress leader also claimed that such new votes went to the BJP, which pointed to "wrongdoings." Wherever such new voters cast their votes, the BJP won, he charged.

"The votes of our alliance did not reduce and we got exactly the same number of votes we had in the Lok Sabha election. The new voters went to the BJP in the Assembly election," he added.

Rahul claimed that in Karnataka, Congress surveys showed them winning 15 to 16 seats in the Lok Sabha election but won only nine seats.

"Did we really lose elections? We demanded a soft copy voter list but they rejected it. When we demanded video, they rejected it and changed the law. They said that they should destroy the video after 45 days," Gandhi said.

Holding a copy of the Constitution, he said it has the ideology of thousands of years of history.

"It has Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru and Sardar Patel’s voice resonates along with the sayings of Basavanna, Narayana Guru and Jyotiba Phule. Its foundation is one man one vote.” Every Indian citizen has the right of one vote each.

Rahul Gandhi claimed that during the recent polls , PM Modi and his party leaders “made an assault on the Constitution and Indian institutions were destroyed".